On Saturday 09 March 2019 23:43:26 Gregg Eshelman via Emc-users wrote: > Three Mile Island's containment worked. Only a small amount of > radioactive steam got outside. What prolonged the incident was the > location of an indicator lamp. While the crew was clustered in one > spot trying to figure out where all the water they were pumping into > the core was going, the light indicating a valve was open (which > should have automatically closed) was on the other side of the room. > When someone finally noticed the light and hit the manual close > control, cooling water quit blowing out of the containment vessel and > the core was able to cool down. Unfortunately it had gotten hot enough > to ruin it. At the time, control system that brought things to the > operator rather than requiring the operator to constantly move around > to check on things were the realm of science fiction, or were just in > their early stages. TMI didn't have monitors that would pop up a "Hey! > This valve isn't closed!" alert right in front of them. But such > systems have existed for 30+ years. Many types of factories and plants > use computer screens with graphical schematics and readouts of all the > critical things. Operators can point and click to open and close > valves, adjust temperatures, even emergency shutdown the entire system > to bring it all to a halt. But not at any of the old nuclear power > plants. Their control rooms look like something from 40~50 years ago > because they *are* from 40~50 years ago. Never upgraded, never > modernized, never made one iota safer than the day their construction > was finished. Even worse, they went into operation with control > systems already years obsolete because of the drawn out process of > fighting governments and protestors who refuse to learn and understand > any facts about nuclear power - or refuse to allow newer, better > technology to be used. I suspect there was much cackling with glee > among the no-nukes crowd when Fukishima went kablooey. Their > obstructionism 'proved' that nuclear power is 'unsafe' by blocking any > safety improvements from being made. Nevermind that radiation release, > while worse than TMI was nowhere near on the scale of Chernobyl. Their > constant obstructionism to upgrades is the root cause of why the > tsunami was able to cause the right sort of damage that led to the > overheating, hydrogen explosions etc. The diesel backup generators > should have been relocated to a better spot, provided with better > flood protection, or had additional generators added and better > protected. I would not be surprised to find that all of that (and > other safety upgrades) had been proposed at various times, and blocked > by anti-nuke politicians. The Fukishima reactor complex was designed > to be safe from a tsunami wave like the last big one that had caused > major damage many years before. Tsunami walls, floodgates, and various > other mediation projects had been implemented, especially in locations > where the previous tsunami had caused the most damage. None of it did > much good VS the 2011 tsunami that was 1.5x, 2x or more larger. A wall > designed to hold back a 15 foot wave doesn't help much when hit by a > 25 foot wave. > > The one problem I see as being really troublesome with the design of > Fukushima is that it apparently was incapable of being fully self > powering of all its systems at any time. Who designs a power plant > able to run for 25 years or so, producing electricity, without needing > to be refueled, that does not tap its own power generation to run all > of its electronics, pumps etc? No nuclear power plant should require > an external electricity supply for anything as long as at least one > reactor is 'hot' and one turbine is running. IMHO, an ideal > multi-reactor power plant should have one small > reactor/turbine/generator set for powering everything in the facility. > One the size of what's used in a nuclear submarine. Under normal > conditions its output would be added to what the big reactors and > generators produce, but in an emergency where the big reactors are > shut down, the little one would stay up and running, in its well > armored and isolated, flood proof, building, supported on isolating > springs. > > When the earthquake hit, Fukushima went to automatic shutdown. > Apparently the external power supply also went down so the diesel > generators kicked in. That's where the trouble began. The tsunami took > out the generators, which shut down the cooling pumps. Since there > wasn't any other way to get power to the pumps to cool down the > reactor cores, they heated up to the point where the water in the > vessels split into hydrogen and oxygen, which then caused explosions. > Better protected generators, and more of them, plus modern control > systems with the ability to quickly self test for damage and get back > online after a SCRAM initiated by the earthquake sensors - might have > gotten one core back online and the facility back under self power in > the time between the quake and the tsunami hitting. But that couldn't > happen because Fukushima was forced to be frozen in the technological > past. > > Is Japan still keeping all their nuclear plants idle? They've had to > import and burn more fuel to provide electricity since the government > ordered all the reactors shut down. > > On Saturday, March 9, 2019, 8:26:16 PM MST, Gene Heskett > <ghesk...@shentel.net> wrote: Unfortunately for us, the sun has its > own way of balanceing things and it generally Just Works. Thank $Diety > its not big enough to nova, but will end ts life in 5 billion years as > a bettelgues? lookalike. Leave it to humans with no concept of common > sense, but lots of don't rock the boat rules and you get TMI, > Chernobyl, and Fukushima. And probably 100 more lessor 'accidents' we > haven't been told about. > > The first thing the regulators will do is freeze the design down to > the last screw in it, no matter if a far better way to do it is later > found. My son, who works for a service company that does service work > on electronics that fail in these power facilities on this side of the > pond, he can't replace anything with a newer, better part, it has to > be an official OEM part. No modern, thousands of times more dependable > transistor carrying 10x the voltage and current ratings can be used. > They wind up buying $5k worth of old transistors hoping to find one > good one in the lot. Thats pure BS, the improved technology should be > welcomed. But you can't tell them anything, because the people that > write the rules only know this worked so they'll never ever allow > something that hasn't passed the test of time measured in decades.
The point I was belaboring is that any one of us on this list could fix all that including me. But we'ed never in the next 10k years, be allowed to because the regulation is being done by people who have never understood the real power of the genie they have been given the power to regulate. As Einstein famously said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Have any of us taken a geiger counter to the grocery store and checked the bagged or canned tuna lately? If I could find one I could afford, I would have long ago, but even junk thats for parts is half a kilobuck. Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
